Online Public Relations Thoughts

Daily entries on Public Relations and communications ideas and trends

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Everlasting Sin

On the internet, no one forgets your failings. They are there in every search one does to the embarrassment of individuals and organizations. In that light, it has become more important to protect reputation, first by avoiding circumstances that compromise one and second, by having a good defense from the outset. How, for example, can this senator and this football player live down the incidents in which they have ensnared themselves? Even if they are in the public eye 25 years from now, the internet will divulge their pasts.

In this light, the internet is the modern scarlet letter that hangs on reputation and doesn't allow forgiveness. As individuals and organizations understand the internet's persistence, there will be efforts to wipe out the past (which have started) followed by deeper concern for reputation from the outset, which has yet to begin.

PR has always been concerned with protecting reputation. In that light, the internet is an opportunity for growth through providing proactive defense today that lives in databases alongside embarrassing incidents.